"I'm done with it. I do, however, think that Ornello should apologize for the "They not infrequently smell," comment. I have been perfectly civil in my discourse."

--Gary

You have indeed been perfectly civil Gary and I hope that comment doesn't put you off from continuing to post here.
Personally, I'm all for a discussion about whether photography can be art or not, as long as participants who post in the thread remain civil without name calling or verbal mud slinging.

I maintain none the less that photographers wanting to be called 'artists' is ironic (because they think that this makes their work more important or valuable or something along those lines), for I regard photography as superior to and more important than art. It's like the president wanting to be called janitor.

In ancient Greece, the word for producers of what we today call 'art' was the same as what we call 'craftsmen'. There was no distinction, in other words, between artist and craftsman linguistically. In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labor.

I have searched for "The Aesthetic Understanding" without success. I sent an email to the man himself who replied: ("You may be able to obtain it from St Augustine's Press, South Bend, Indiana.") Oh well.